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The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale (1990)

March. 09,1990
|
6
|
R
| Drama Science Fiction

In a dystopicly polluted rightwing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.

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SunnyHello
1990/03/09

Nice effects though.

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Kaydan Christian
1990/03/10

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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Tobias Burrows
1990/03/11

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

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Nicole
1990/03/12

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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swilliky
1990/03/13

Margaret Atwood's nightmarish Gilead was first brought to the screen in 1990. Kate (Natasha Richardson) is introduced on the run trying to escape across the border of Gilead but she is caught. Her husband is shot and her child is lost in the wilderness. She is shipped off to a camp where they are sorting through the people by race. Trucks of people are shipped away as women proved to be without illness and viable for pregnancy are sent to conditioning. Many women suffer breakdowns during the harsh treatment as the vicious tutors like Aunt Lydia (Victoria Tennant) degrade them in order to convert them to their new lifestyle. Once Kate shows good behavior, she is presented to the family as a potential surrogate. She will assist Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway) and the Commander (Robert Duvall) by allowing her body be used to have a baby. This forced surrogacy occurs in an odd ceremony where the wife hold the handmaid down while the husband has sex with her. The Commander takes a liking to Kate, now Offred, and plays games with her in his private office, also rewarding her with old beauty magazines. Dressed in a red uniform and a veil, Offred is allowed to go shopping amidst security guards who scan her security bracelet and a fellow handmaid Ofglen (Blanche Baker).Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

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Sarah C.
1990/03/14

This movie made me dig up my old IMDb account I never planned on reviving, that's how bad I find it to be although feel free to ignore my post because I liked the book better so I might be a little biased here. Those who didn't read the book might find this movie tolerable.The top reason I dislike this movie is because it utterly disregards the last meta-fictional part of the book which was so crucial to the story written by Margaret Atwood. The entire narration is actually a lost diary of your very average person who is no writer but finds herself suddenly trapped in the cogs of theocratic totalitarianism and still manages to "record" her thoughts on tapes and paper (what you read) to preserve her sanity just like Winston Smith from Nineteen Eighty-Four did which later is found and used as a retrospective account of a "bygone world" in a free civilization that studies barbaric aspects of its history, giving it a rather optimistic ending which was absent in the movie or just replaced with a watered-down Hollywoodish "I'll find you, baby. Oh look, it's the auspicious sunset *faces the sunset while smiling*" ending (living as an "unwoman" in a trailer park, is that Volker Schlöndorff's idea how to end this movie?).Handmaid's Tale without its proper context as a historic "document" is just pointless. Film adaptations like this convince me that some books are simply impossible to be adapted either out of budget reasons or other and if you still go ahead and make it, you'll end up with a pointless Hollywood's assembly line flick that shares original work's name only and is nothing but an empty shell of it, filled with popcorn audience-appeasing violent filler.Two stars for costumes which were far more impressive than those I made up in my head and the "All-Seeing Eye" design which while not original (you can see it on every one dollar bill, the symbol of Christianity's Trinity) is still profound and in this hypothetical world probably as scary as a Nazi Germany's swastika.- - P.S. One would be really tempted to draw parallels with what's happening in the US in 2017 and the plot of Handmaid's Tale with Planned Parenthood being threatened to be defunded, abortion clinics all over the country threatened to lose federal funding unless they, um, stop performing abortions, evangelical-approved far-right "Family Groups," one of them designated as a "hate group" by the Southern Law Poverty Center, sent to the UN Women's Rights Conference (2017) as representatives of US women's interest (I wish this was satire) and while the President was not shot yet and replaced with federal theocratic dictators that systematically tread on the rights of women I think that's all it is, a tempting suggestion. I wouldn't be so far from right if I called it a "cautionary tale" though.(2018 update: Flick is hardly worth even one star, let's be honest now.)

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SnoopyStyle
1990/03/15

In a world consumed by infertility, Kate (Natasha Richardson) is trying to escape the Republic of Gilead with her family. It's a totalitarian Christian state where fertile women are forced to conceive. The blacks, welfare, women's liberation and in vitro fertilization are among the things blamed for the world's problems. Kate and her daughter are captured while her husband is killed. Kate is made to be a handmaid trained by Aunt Lydia (Victoria Tennant). She befriends lesbian Moira (Elizabeth McGovern). She is placed with the commander (Robert Duvall) and given the new name Offred. She is ritualistically raped and expected to conceive for them. As he takes an interest in her, she fears retribution from his wife Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway). The commander is infertile and she falls for the help Nick (Aidan Quinn).It's a harrowing world. The problem is trying to get a compelling story out of it. It's fine for the most part although the production design could be better. The last act needs an explosive ending. The movie decides on an actual explosion which does nothing for the tension. With its obvious restraints, the movie needs a less expensive and more intense final conflict. In my mind, she needs to also kill Serena Joy in an all out fight. Kate ends up waiting around for the men to save the world. It's not a terribly liberated ending.

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moonspinner55
1990/03/16

Margaret Atwood's acclaimed novel, adapted for the screen and turned into a high-minded but posed, uncomfortable human drama, despite an expert cast. Taking place in the soulless distant future, all young women have been turned into child-breeders for wealthy, infertile couples, with Nastasha Richardson assigned to nightmarish twosome Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway. Elizabeth McGovern plays a lesbian who hopes to make a break for it (every totalitarian society should have one). Certainly watchable, though an icy cold presentation which promises to be much more than it is. Richardson doesn't flash a hint of her feisty personality, though McGovern is very good and Duvall does what he can with a terrible role. ** from ****

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